Talk Sales Rebound, Says Talkers Seminar Panel

Has The Sandra Fluke Backlash Ended For Rush Limbaugh?

June 7, 2013 at 7:10 AM (PT)

The TALKERS talk radio seminar in NEW YORK THURSDAY (6/6) dispensed with the "New Media Seminar" name formerly attached to the event -- publisher MICHAEL HARRISON said that the words "New Media" were old already -- and the focus was, as it has been in the past, mostly on the present state of Talk radio.

While most of the day addressed topics that were dealt with in previous events, a panel on sales and marketing moderated by the RAB's ERICA FARBER produced some reaction, with PREMIERE NETWORKS' DAN METTER noting that the company has recovered from "the challenge" of lost advertising from the RUSH LIMBAUGH-SANDRA FLUKE controversy by focusing on "enterpreneurial" advertisers like LIFELOCK, LEGALZOOM, and GOLDLINE, who, he said, were buying not ideology but access to the hosts' audiences (DIAL GLOBAL's JOHN MURPHY, noting the arbitrary nature of no-buy lists, said that he even saw "THE OSGOOD FILES" and "60 MINUTES" on no-buy lists). METTER said that sales for the company's Talk shows were pacing ahead of last year after a slow JANUARY.

CBS RADIO SALES/ENTERCOM RADIO SALES' JANA COSGROVE added that first quarter was up 5% for her stations, with growth in secondary telecommunications (SPRINT and T-MOBILE), retail (from KOHL'S and other discounters), financial/insurance, and companies like SERVICEMASTER.

EMMIS' JEFF SMULYAN, who took the opportunity to urge the audience to support his cell phone radio chip initiative ("a game changer"), said that MARCH, APRIL, and MAY represented his company's "best quarter in years."

The event also included a video talk from PREMIERE's SEAN HANNITY and a live speech by CBS RADIO Sports WFAN-A-F/NEW YORK's MIKE FRANCESA, both of whom called for better measurement across broadcast and digital platforms; consultant WALTER SABO explaining the difficulty of selling digital ("Radio sales people know how to sell finite inventory," he said, but there is no proper pricing model for the infinite inventory of digital, and clients say they want to buy ROI but can't quantify what they want); awards for JIM BOHANNON (Lifetime Achievement Award), CLEAR CHANNEL's CLAY HUNNICUTT (Humanitarian Award), and GLENN BECK (First Amendment Award); and an unusually testy moment in which CBS RADIO Talk WPHT-A/PHILADELPHIA's DOM GIORDANO introduced his former WPHT colleague MICHAEL SMERCONISH in less-than-flattering fashion.

Has The Sandra Fluke Backlash Ended For Rush Limbaugh?

Has the backlash over RUSH LIMBAUGH’s SANDRA FLUKE comments finally passed? Yes, PREMIERE NETWORKS Dir./Talk Radio Sales DAN METTER told the TALKERS convention. POLITICO.COM reports, "LIMBAUGH is drawing new advertisers and recovering well after the major boycott he faced in response to his broadcasts on FLUKE."

METTER said the boycott forced PREMIERE to find new sources of ad revenues. "They’re not buying an ideology, they’re buying an audience," he said. "And many of whom are advertising with our progressive radio hosts and our conservative radio hosts and everything in the middle. They’re not buying RUSH’s ideology or RANDI RHODES’ ideology. They’re buying them because their audience buys tractors, their audience drinks soda, and their audience needs data backup. And that’s the place to get those types of customers. So we’re doing very, very well."

METTER noted that 2013 was ahead of last year's numbers. "Many of these companies, especially in this economy, need Talk radio. The endorsement of RUSH LIMBAUGH, SEAN HANNITY, RANDI RHODES and GEORGE NOORY is gold to these guys. That builds their brands, makes their business. So where the challenge has been with regard to the controversy is we did have a little bit of a dip -- a great deal of a dip in the second quarter last year after it happened -- we’ve refocused and gone out after those entrepreneur-based companies. And now, a year later, we’re doing very well."